Fate or Chance or Something Else Entirely
by Warden-Scribe
Summary: A modern girl's struggle with loss, darkspawn and a world without Google. After the mysterious death of her twin sister, Lauren Duval goes looking for answers, but finds something else altogether when she's transported to a world she never imagined could exist outside of her computer screen. Rated M for language, violence and sexual themes in later chapters. There, I said it.
1. Prologue

AN: So this is my first DA fanfiction. It starts off a little slowly, because I'm introducing my OC and her entry into the DA 'verse, but please bear with me and hopefully it'll be worth your patience!

Disclaimer: Dragon Age and all characters and place names associated with it belong to Bioware. My heroes.

"Hey, this is Lauren, I can't come to the phone right now, or I'm ignoring you. Either way, leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can…or I won't…'cause…you know…I'm ignoring you. YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID!"

I grinned, shaking my head at my sister's idiotic voicemail greeting-message and waited for the beep.

"Hey, L-Dawg! Listen…I know it's late, and you're probably asleep, I just…I don't know, I'm just out for a drive and I felt like calling you. I don't even…whatever, I just got a feeling that maybe you'd be awake right now or something. Just wanted to hear your voice…shut up, don't make fun of me!" I laughed, picturing her rolling her eyes at my sappiness. Truth be told, I wasn't really sure why I was calling her. I had hit dial before I even realised I was _thinking_ about calling her. I shook my head, realising that my inner-thought-process had left a good five-second silence on the voicemail. "Yeah…so, anyway…give me a call back when you can. I love you."

I hung up and sighed, wondering briefly where I was going. I didn't know, but it didn't seem to matter somehow. I was just driving. There was a nagging voice in the back of my mind that insisted that this wasn't normal, driving around at 4am on a Wednesday for no good reason, but it was all too easy to ignore it. The sky was a light grey colour, not quite dark, but not quite light yet either, and the roads were empty. What road was this, anyway? I was surrounded by green fields on both sides, but that didn't exactly narrow things down out here. My family and I lived in a tiny village called Auchenheath, which was surrounded by seven or eight other tiny villages within walking distance of one another, all connected by the area's dominant farming community. It was a lovely place, really, but when you grow up here, you don't appreciate the quiet beauty of trees and rivers and green hills: you just look for a way to get out – to escape the quiet and the green for somewhere busy and breathing and grey. You get out, or you live and die your quiet life, just like your parents and your grandparents before you, and you definitely _don't_ make a difference.

I'm not saying that I _want_ to make a difference, exactly. But I would like the freedom to be able to choose to want to make a difference…and there have _got_ to be hotter guys in the city than there are here. I mean my _God_, if _Gavin Grieve_ is what qualifies as a heart-throb in this place, I may as well just resign myself to being a spinster right now.

And then I was thinking about Gavin. Phht. _Gavin Grieve._ He was the sports champion at the local high-school, he had average grades but that didn't matter, because everyone knew that he was going to work on the farm with his dad anyway. And that was_ good_. People around here _respected _that.

My sister used to say that he was the "biggest little shit in Lanarkshire". I grinned at the memory. And then I was thinking about Lauren again. I still wasn't 100% sure why exactly I had felt the need to call her, but as soon as I started to wonder about it, I felt anxious that I hadn't got through. I tapped out a nervous rhythm on the steering wheel, chewing my lip, and reached out, almost subconsciously, to the phone still nestled in the hands-free holder on the dash, and hit re-dial.

It rang twice and I shook my head, hanging up.

_What am I doing? If I wake her up, she'll kill me._

My sister was _not _a morning person. I slapped both hands back on the steering wheel and drove for a few more minutes in silence. The clock on the dashboard flashed 5am. George Bowie's Radio Breakfast Show would just be starting on Clyde 1. I had never actually been awake early enough to catch the start of it before. I moved to turn the radio on, but my hand wouldn't budge from the steering wheel. I frowned, trying again to release my grip on the wheel, but my hands stayed stuck fast, like they didn't belong to me, or like I was no longer in control of them. Confusion and panic rose up inside of me, and my heart started doing that sickly fluttering it does when I'm watching something terrible happen and there's nothing I can do to stop it.

At the same time, the dial on my speedometer started moving slowly, going from forty to fifty…to sixty…to seventy…I was screaming now. Not sure when that started. After that, things go a bit blurry – hardly surprising when you're pushing ninety miles an hour on a country road in half-light – but I do remember the tree. Gnarled and black, it stood out from its surroundings like it didn't belong there. My hands – not my hands anymore – turned the wheel ever so slightly so that I was heading straight for it – like it was a homing beacon, pulling me in. I closed my eyes, defeated.

"Lauren…LAUREN!" Without knowing why, I screamed her name, and the darkness swallowed it, and became me, and my hands finally let go of the wheel. Too late. Too late.

When you grow up here, you don't appreciate the quiet beauty of trees and rivers and green hills: you just look for a way to get out – to escape the quiet and the green for somewhere busy and breathing and grey. You get out, or you live and die your quiet life, just like your parents and your grandparents before you, and you definitely _don't_ make a difference.


	2. Crashing

"Emily!"

The tears were there before I opened my eyes, and I sat bolt upright in bed. A dream. Was it a dream? Was I awake? Had I been sleeping? A light went on outside my bedroom door and my dad poked his head in.

"Lauren, it's five thirty in the morning. What are you screaming about?" He asked, with all the rage and confusion of a man who had just been awoken in a very unpleasant manner.

"Was I screaming? I don't…it was a nightmare. I think…I don't…Emily, is she okay?" I demanded, jumping out of bed, my heart pounding so hard that it ached inside my chest.

"She's fine, she's asleep…_was_ asleep, she probably isn't anymore with your screaming! That racket would wake the dead!" He hissed, rubbing his eyes. I pushed past him into the hallway, ignoring his protests, and ran to my sister's room, wrenching the door open and racing to the bed. I threw the covers off to confirm what, in my heart, I already knew.

"She's gone, Emily's gone!" I screamed, fear and panic conquering any common sense I might have had.

"What do you mean, "_gone_"?" My dad demanded, marching up the hall towards me.

"What do you _think_ I mean? She's _gone_, she's not here, she's absent, she left, she's AWOL, astray, _disappeared_, there's an Emily-shaped hole in her bed where Emily should be but she's _not_, because she's GONE!" I rambled, frantically, pushing past him for a second time and making for the stairs. "I have to find her, I have to…"

"What…and where do you think _you're_ going, young lady?" He demanded, but turned to see me frozen at the top of the staircase, hand clutching my chest, eyes bulging wide. "Lauren?"

I couldn't move; couldn't acknowledge him; couldn't see anything but the flashing blue light illuminating the landing at the bottom of the stairs. Flashing blue light that spilled in through the window on the front door from the police car parked outside of my house. The police car that belonged to the policeman who was rapping on the door now; the policeman who had come to tell us what I already knew. I collapsed where I stood, unable to move from the top step. There were no more tears…I was too far gone to cry. I just sat there, watching as my father stepped over me and descended the staircase, unsteadily. He knew. Of course he knew. He didn't know what I knew, hadn't seen what I had seen, but he knew that something was very wrong. Irreparably wrong. I didn't even hear what the policeman said, didn't even look up when my mother joined them, didn't feel a thing as I watched both of my parents holding each other, sobbing and wailing and breaking. I was catatonic. I stood up after an immeasurable amount of time and went back to bed. I closed my eyes, alone in the darkness.

And then: _then_, I cried. I cried and cried until I was empty, until I had no more tears left, and then I cried some more. I cried for hours. I cried until it ached, until the ache numbed, and then ached again. I cried until it got dark, until I fell asleep and dreamed about her. When I woke up and saw that I had two missed calls from her, frantic hope clutched at my being, and I tried to call her back. Straight to voicemail. Voicemail…that triggered something in the back of my mind. I checked my messages…one new message…from Emily.

At the age of eighteen, it sounds somewhat foolish to call myself a "scientist", but I don't mean I'm pottering about in a lab with test tubes, wearing a white coat and curing cancer. I'm scientifically-minded, always have been. I believe in earth and rocks and physics, not "The Force" or poltergeists or prophetic dreams or anything that might fall into the category of Supernatural.

But, that said, I_ knew_ that my dream had been real just as sure as I knew that the Earth was round. The voicemail Emily left me; I had heard it before I ever picked up my phone. And I knew it wasn't a case of filling in the blanks - I had listened to the voicemail and my mind had done the legwork and filled it into my memory of the dream – I knew it wasn't that because I knew every word she was going to say before I listened to it. And that meant that the dream had been real. And if the dream had been real, then the implications of that were too much for me to process in my current frame of mind.

But something had killed my sister. Some unseen force had sent her crashing to her death. Why? Of the two of us, Emily was always the softer one, the more popular one. We were identical twins, but only on the outside. Emily was the nicer one, the better one. Why would anybody want to hurt her? And _how_?

I didn't know, but I promised her then that I would find out.

I listened to the message over and over until eventually, grief and exhaustion won over and sleep claimed me once more. I don't remember dreaming.


	3. Funeral Voices

Emily's funeral was exactly one week after her death.

I stayed in bed for five of those seven terrible days, until eventually I couldn't stay in bed any longer for the sake of my sanity. Even the fact that I now feared for my sanity was an improvement – only a day before I wouldn't have cared. In fact, I would have welcomed a breakdown. I wanted to rip my heart out to stop it from aching, that agonising, empty hurt. I wanted my mind to shut down, to stop thinking about her, picturing her, hearing her voice as it screamed my name in those last few desperate moments before she was gone.

I didn't tell anybody about the dream. I doubt anybody would have believed me if I had, but that wasn't why I kept it to myself. I knew that what I had seen was real: I didn't need anybody else to validate that. Maybe I should have said something. When the police told my parents that they believed my sister had taken her own life, maybe I should have corrected them. But would that have made it better? Would the truth help anybody right now? I wished to God that _I_ hadn't seen her last, terrified seconds as she struggled against…something. No, better that they think she was another tragic teen suicide. Better that they never have to deal with knowing she was murdered.

I don't remember much of the funeral. It was a closed casket, of course. It was always a closed casket when the body was so badly damaged. I doubted that she looked at all like my sister anymore. I shuddered to think about it as I walked down the aisle, trying to make my way to the front pew to be with my family, trying to ignore the muttering and the looks of curiosity and sadness from the congregation. I heard snippets of whispered conversation as I passed.

"…looks just like her…"

"…must be so hard for the family to see her every day…"

"…so sad…her poor mother…"

"…just can't believe she killed herself…"

I stopped, mid-stride, my hands balled into fists of their own accord. I shook with grief and anger, and opened my mouth to say something to the whisperers, but I had no words. I just shook my head and kept walking as the tears fell from my eyes, hot and wet and silent.

The minister spoke for what felt like hours. He didn't even know her. Emily was an atheist, she never went to church. I didn't pay attention to anything he was saying, I wasn't sure I could handle that right now: hearing about my sister's life from a man who had never met her. I heard afterwards that it was a beautiful service. Whatever that means.

Before heading to the cemetery, my mother, father and I were expected to stand by the doors of the church to thank those who had come to mourn, and receive their condolences in turn. It was just a blur of pitying eyes and trite words. "Sorry for your loss." Sure. Thanks. Can I go now?

"Lauren, I'm very sorry for your…" I recognised the voice of the local doctor and my eyes snapped up to meet his, taking him aback with my sudden change of demeanour.

"Dr. Dash…Phillip…you performed Emily's autopsy." My mother whipped her head round and gave me a warning look, but I ignored her. Dr. Dash shifted uncomfortably and nodded, solemnly.

"Er…yes, Lauren, I did. I am truly sorry for your-"

"Did you find anything…unusual in her blood work?" I asked, cutting him off for a second time.

"Lauren!" My dad hissed, quietly, throwing the doctor an apologetic look.

"Ah…perhaps this isn't the best time to discuss…"

"What? So you_ did_ find something?"

He sighed, sadly, and shook his head.

"No, Lauren. There was nothing in her blood. I checked for traces of sedatives or…" He lowered his voice and glanced sadly at my parents. "…or narcotics. There was nothing out of the ordinary."

"So…so maybe nothing showed up, but is there any way she could have taken something that maybe wouldn't show up in a normal blood test? Was there _anything _unusual at all?" I asked, desperately.

"Lauren, I know this must be extremely hard for you, given…given how close you and she were. But please believe me, if there was anything to find, I would have found it." He assured me in that slow, gentle voice that doctors use when dealing with someone fragile.

"But what if-"

"Lauren, that is enough!" My dad yelled, and I whipped round to see that his face was scarlet with anger and embarrassment.

"Please, stop it!" My mum cried, sobbing.

"Are you happy now?" My dad growled, putting his arm around her. I looked around and saw that a crowd had gathered around us, watching our exchange with sad eyes.

"I am…truly sorry for your loss." Dr. Dash said, and I nodded.

"Thank you, Doctor. I'm sorry too." I said, and I meant it. I looked around at all of the faces watching me, pitying me. "My sister didn't kill herself." I insisted, and a few eyes lowered to the ground. My mum started weeping again and my father muttered something that I couldn't hear, but it sounded like he was trying to be comforting. I sighed and strode past my mortified parents and out of the doors, fishing my car keys out of my coat pocket as I went.

"Lauren…Lauren, wait!" My father jogged to catch up with me but I kept walking. "Lauren, where are you going? You can't leave, we haven't even buried her yet."

"Yes, you have." I snapped. "She may not be in the ground yet, but you've buried her."

"What's that supposed to mean?" He demanded, furiously. I stopped and whipped around to face him.

"It's like you've forgotten who she was! Em didn't _kill_ herself, Dad. She would_ never_ do that, that is _absolutely_ not who she was. But you're not even questioning it!" I knew it wasn't his fault, but I was angry, and he was there. He seemed to calm down, which wasn't what I wanted. I _wanted_ a fight. But he wasn't going to give me one. He sniffed, and ran a hand through his hair.

"So…so do you think I should go back in there and harass the doctor until he tells me what I want to hear?" he asked, quietly. "I'm trying, Lauren, I really am. Do you think I want to believe that my little girl…took her own life?" His voice cracked on the last word and he shook his head, his eyes swimming with tears. "Your mum's…she's falling apart in there. I am trying to keep this family together, and I don't think the best way of doing that is dwelling on the details. Emily's gone. She's gone, sweetheart. And I'm just trying to keep my head above water here."

I nodded, my anger still bubbling below the surface.

"Okay, dad. You just…go back in there and keep treading water." I held up my car keys and shook them, pointedly. "I'm going to go drown my sorrows. You can pick me up from the Southfield on the way home."

"You're going to the pub instead of saying goodbye to your sister?" My dad asked, shaking his head. His disappointment was evident, and it stung, but I just didn't care.

"Who says I can't do both at the same time?" I asked, shrugging, as I walked away from him.

I knew that I looked like a petulant child, but it didn't matter. Better he be angry with me than worried about me. Of course I wasn't going to the _pub_. I had to find out what happened to Emily. And I only had one place to start. I had to go back to the scene of the crash, see if there was anything there that the police had missed. I couldn't stay here; I couldn't watch them lower her body into the ground. She wasn't there anymore, anyway. I was respecting her memory more by trying to figure out what had really happened to her.


	4. Spectres

"…_he's a god, he's a man, he's a ghost, he's a guru, they're whispering his name through this disappearing land, but hidden in his coat is a red right hand…"_

"That's quite enough of that." I muttered to myself, turning the radio off with a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold air blasting through the air-con. This road was unsettling enough without ominous background music. It only took a few seconds to realise that the silence was just as bad.

It's difficult to find a soundtrack that makes retracing your dead sister's last steps any easier.

I didn't have to drive for long before I saw it. Even with the afternoon sun still high in the sky and birds chirping, it still made the little hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. It looked like something that had been plucked straight from the set of a horror movie, and it was just as black and twisted as it had looked in the twilight…just before Emily was slammed into it. I stopped my car a good distance before it. I didn't expect the same thing to happen to me, but it just seemed like recklessness to risk it. For reasons that I'm still unsure of, I grabbed my handbag from the passenger seat before getting out of the car, and started walking slowly towards it. I almost turned back a few times, but then I thought of Emily and I kept walking, ignoring the alarm bells that were ringing in my head.

Still, I approached the tree with caution, half-expecting it to go all "Whomping Willow" on me. I stood in front of it, looking up at the bare, twisted branches. It was a sunny day, but the tree wasn't just black, I realised, it was dark, as though the sunlight couldn't reach it, somehow. Another shiver, another urge to turn around and run and never look back, but I knew that I couldn't. I knew that if the tables were turned around, she wouldn't leave me now. I couldn't abandon her. But now that I was here, I felt a little foolish. What did I expect to find? It was just a tree. A spooky, Burton-esque tree, but a tree all the same. There were no answers here, only more pain.

Hot tears of frustration coupled with grief pricked my eyes and I grunted in anger, turning away from it, but I couldn't leave just yet. I wanted to, God knows I wanted to get the Hell out of there, but something was making me stay. I lowered myself to the ground and sat, looking up at the snaking branches, waiting for an answer to fall out of the sky like Newton's apple. Of course, nothing happened. I sat there for a few minutes longer and sighed, standing up and brushing myself off. The sound of an approaching car caught my attention and I turned to see a green Fiesta driving slowly towards me. I recognised it as Seth Logan's car, my sister's ex-boyfriend. I frowned. They hated each other, but a quick scan of Facebook this morning told me that he had forgotten all about that and was playing the part of wounded lover. Idiot. As he got closer, I noticed that he wasn't alone in the car, four of his friends were with him, and every one of them was gaping at me in what I can only describe as pure horror. They looked like they'd just seen a ghost. I narrowed my eyes and stared him out and he sped up instantly and zoomed past me like a bat out of Hell. I heard their screams even after they disappeared around the bend.

"What…oh." I started giggling, and then full-on laughing. I laughed until my ribs ached and tears streamed out of my eyes. They hadn't seen me standing by a tree. They had seen the spitting image of my sister, dressed completely in black, haunting the site of her tragic death. It shouldn't have been so funny, but I think I was a little hysterical at the time. I laughed until it stopped being funny, and then I was afraid I was going to start crying again. I righted myself and took a few deep, steadying breaths, trying to pull myself together.

"Ooooh…okay…time to go." I stopped and, on an impulse, planted a light kiss on my fingertips and reached out to touch the tree. "Goodbye, Em." I whispered.

But as soon as my hand came into contact with the scaly bark, I was thrown backwards. I mean literally_ thrown_ through the air like a rag-doll. I landed on my front with a thump on hard, mossy ground, winded from the impact. "What the fuck?" I tried to say, but I couldn't get a breath.

I turned around to look at the tree, but it was…gone. Or_ I_ was gone, because the place where the tree should have stood was occupied by a small, primitive-looking hut. The road was gone, the fields were gone. I was in the middle of a forest. And then I realised. It had happened. I had lost my mind. I thought I had felt it slipping a few times over the last week, but this was on another level. I flipped myself onto my back and perched myself up unsteadily on my elbows. A shadow moved over me and blocked out the sunlight and I squinted up at the figure of a woman looming over me. A woman I recognised…quite impossibly.

"You…" It came out like an accusation, though I had meant it more incredulously than accusingly.

"Mother!" She called to the hut, folding her arms. "We have a guest."

And that was it. My mind had reached its limit, and I slumped back on the moss, letting go of consciousness…if that's what it was at all.

AN: See? We've landed in Fereldan, as promised. Please review if you can, I'd really appreciate some feedback.


	5. Witch of the Wilds

I woke up slowly, squinting in the harsh sunlight that was streaming through my bedroom window. My mum must have been in my room to open the curtains while I was asleep – I had kept them drawn for the last week. I tugged my pillow out from behind my head, pulled it over my face and let out a low groan. My head pounded as though I had sank two bottles of wine the night before. Had I? I struggled to remember. I left the funeral – shit, I _left_ the funeral. No - I caused a scene, yelled at my dad, and _then_ left the funeral. I was going to have to deal with my parents over that at some point. I left the funeral and drove to the tree. And then I left and went…where? Did I go to the pub after all? It would certainly explain why my head was all cotton wool and why I had no memory of going to bed.

Wait…when _did_ I leave the tree? I couldn't remember ever getting back into my car.

"So! You are awake, at long last." I froze mid-thought at the sound of a voice that was both foreign and familiar, a voice that triggered something in my memory and the events of the previous day came flooding back. "Tis almost noon. Or were you planning on sleeping the _whole _day?"

I pulled the pillow tighter over my face, screwing my eyes shut and refusing to believe that this was happening. Still, there was a small, insane part of me that wasn't completely in denial.

"Morrigan?" My voice came out tiny, muffled by the pillow, but I knew she heard me.

"That is my name, though I do not remember introducing myself whilst you were lying on the ground, unconscious." Her words posed a question, but I had too many of my own right now, I wasn't going to start explaining myself to a product of my mental breakdown. Oh yeah, I was still there, believing that I had simply lost my mind. If only.

I let out a shrill, nervous laugh, keeping the pillow firmly over my face.

"Did I miss something amusing? Or are you simply a fool?" Her tone was still light, but I thought I detected a hint of impatience there. I laughed harder, and she sighed, irritably. Footsteps approached from outside and a door creaked open.

"She is awake." There was no mistaking Flemeth's distinctive rasp. I was laughing hysterically now, I couldn't stop. "And the better for it, I see."

"Hardly. I think she must have landed on her head harder than we thought." Morrigan drawled.

"She is simply in shock. It will pass." Flemeth's footsteps approached the bed. "She has travelled a long way to get here."

I stopped laughing abruptly when the pillow was torn from my grasp with more force than I had been prepared for, and I sat up with a start, finding myself eye to fierce, yellow eye with Flemeth. I inhaled, sharply. If my mind was creating these visions, it was doing a damn good job of it. Before I had time to process anything further, a mug of sweet-smelling…something, was thrust into my hands.

"Drink this, child. It will help to clear your mind."

"I don't-"

"Drink." She insisted.

"But I-"

"Drink." Her voice hardened and I raised the mug to my mouth, obediently. The liquid was viscous and sweet, but not unpleasant. I drank almost half of it before a voice in my head piped up that I was drinking something that had been handed to me by a known abomination, and I choked on the syrup and lowered the mug, coughing and spluttering.

"Better?" Flemeth asked, in a sickly sweet voice that chilled me to the bone. I opened my mouth to respond when a warm sensation spread through my limbs, relaxing the muscles. At the same time, it felt as though my mind had been plunged into a bucket of cool water. I gritted my teeth at the peculiar sensation, but once it passed I found that my mind was, in fact, clearer. I blinked up at the maleficar standing before me.

"Yes." I replied, my surprise evident. "What was that?"

"Essence of Elfroot…among other things, it matters not. What is your name, traveller?" She asked, her amber eyes probing my face.

"Lauren Duval." I replied, glancing at Morrigan who was skulking in the corner of the room, eyeing me with a look of deep mistrust.

"You are a long way from home, Lauren." It wasn't a question. "You are not of this world. And yet, you know me, and you know Morrigan…do you not?"

I nodded. What did I have to lose? If this _was_ real, which I still wasn't sure of, although the concoction that Flemeth had given me had alleviated some of my doubt, I may as well be honest. I knew better than to lie to the Witch of the Wilds.

"I do…it's difficult to explain how." I finished, lamely. Somehow, I didn't think 'You're characters from a videogame, and I killed you this one time' would go over very well.

"Yes, I imagine it would be. Tell me, Lauren…what _do_ you know of me?"

_Just that you're a shape-shifting abomination who plans to claim your daughter's body for your own._

"You're Flemeth, known to the people of Fereldan as the Witch of the Wilds; known to the elvhen as Asha'bellanar; and, to the unfortunate, as 'what's that big purple thing flying towards us?'." Flemeth laughed, heartily, throwing her head back. Morrigan's face remained passive, although she raised an eyebrow, suspiciously, when I caught her eye. "I also know that you know a great deal more than you let on."

The mirth left Flemeth's eyes and was replaced by a look of steel.

"A trait that you and I share, I have no doubt." She replied.

"Yeah, well…everybody has secrets." I said, quietly, holding her gaze despite my instinct to look away from those fierce eyes. "But I won't upset the balance of this world by running my mouth off about things that are better left unsaid. I just want to get home."

And I meant it. I had spent hours upon hours immersed in the world of Thedas, wishing I was really here, fighting with the Grey Wardens to defeat the Blight. But now that I was here, all I wanted was to wake up in my own bed, content that this was all just a crazy dream. But Flemeth shook her head.

"I am afraid your home is out of reach…for now. You travelled here through a tear in the Veil…your arrival caused a great deal of disturbance among the darker forces of this world, and the world beyond. The tear has been repaired. You cannot go back the way you came, because that way no longer exists."

It took a few seconds for her words to sink in, and I shook my head in disbelief.

"But…you're Flemeth!" I exclaimed. "Can't you just tear another hole in the Veil and send me back?"

"I cannot. The path that you travelled to get here was created by powerful forces, the likes of which are beyond even me. Your being here is not the work of any mortal. Nor is it an accident. You have been chosen, and until you fulfil your purpose here, here is where you shall remain."

"Chosen? Powerful forces? I don't…I-I-I'm not…chosen to do _what_, exactly?" I stammered, frowning.

"Well, I should think that is quite apparent. You have been chosen to put an end to the Blight that threatens Fereldan." She said, with an air of someone who was explaining something painfully obvious to a five-year-old with ADHD. I laughed, and she narrowed her eyes.

"_Chosen to stop the Blight_?" My voice came out much higher than usual. "I can't even_ lift_ a sword, let alone slay Darkspawn, never mind the _Archdemon_. I don't have any special powers or abilities…Grey Wardens stop blights, and I'm no Warden." I insisted, folding my arms, stubbornly.

"Well then, it seems you know what you must do. The Grey Wardens are gathered in the ruins of Ostagar. You must go to them." She said; in the tone that my mum used when telling me to pop down to the shop to buy milk. I gawped at her. I knew that Flemeth was a little unhinged, but she_ had_ to be joking.

"Hell. No. I'm going nowhere_ near_ Ostagar. You know what's going to happen there just as well as I do." I didn't mean it to sound like an accusation, but my emotions weren't exactly in check at that particular moment in time.

"So what do you intend to do? If you plan to outrun the horde, then I fear I have credited you with more intelligence than you possess."

"I can try. I have to find a way to get home. If I have to wait until the Wardens kill the Archdemon before that can happen, then I will. I'll…I'll get a horse, make my way to Gwaren, catch a ship to Kirkwall and wait for all this to blow over."

"And do you think it will be that simple?" Flemeth asked, her eyes glittering in amusement. I shrugged.

"Probably not. But it's a better plan than going to Ostagar to fight Darkspawn. I've never been in a fight in my life, I can't even throw a punch. It would be suicide."

I stood up and strode to the door, grabbing my black, high-heeled court shoes from the foot of the bed as I went.

"I see." Flemeth followed me, standing in the doorway as I stepped into my shoes and looked around, trying to get my bearings. "Well, then I wish you luck, Lauren Duval."

I turned around to face her, nodding in acknowledgment.

"Thanks. You too." I looked around her to where Morrigan stood, uncharacteristically silent and observant. "And you, Morrigan. You're going to need it." I said the last part to myself as I continued to scan my surroundings.

"Oh…there is just…one more thing." Flemeth drawled, innocently.

"What's that?" I asked, suspiciously.

She didn't answer. Instead, she moved faster than I would have expected a woman of her age could, maleficar or no, expertly throwing a small, silver dagger through the air, right towards my face. I closed my eyes, recoiling, waiting for the pain, but it didn't come. I opened my eyes slowly, cautiously, and inhaled sharply as I realised what had happened. The pain did not come because the blade never found its target. The tip of the knife was hovering between my eyes, a hairs-breadth from my face, held in place by…me. I had caught it, without realising I had even moved to do so. I lowered the weapon and glared at Flemeth.

"You threw a knife at my head!" I screamed, outraged.

"And you caught it." She replied, simply.

"You threw a _knife_…at my _head_." I repeated. "That's just…I mean, what did you…I…I caught it."

I dropped the knife like it was a poisonous spider and backed away from it, staring at my hands.

"I _caught_ it…what sorcery is this?" I demanded, incredulous.

"I told you. You have been chosen. Do you think a being with power enough to bring you here would be careless enough to choose a saviour who could not fight? That is a ridiculous notion."

"Yes…_that_ is ridiculous." Sarcasm is often my first line of defence. "I'm still not going to Ostagar. Catching one dagger and fighting a horde of Darkspawn are two very different things."

"You have been given a gift! Do not squander it." She stormed, angrily. "If you leave Fereldan, the Grey Wardens will _fail_, Fereldan will be lost and you will remain trapped in Thedas until the end of your days."

Flemeth was an unsettling character. _Angry_ Flemeth was positively terrifying. And her words jolted me. If I fled, I might make it to Kirkwall…but then what? If she was right, and the Grey Wardens needed _me_ for some unfathomable reason, then running away would mean the downfall of an entire nation. The Blight would destroy everything. But if I stayed…I was still shaken from the revelation that I could catch flying daggers without trying, but could I really do this? Become a warrior…a Grey Warden? I felt sick at the thought.

I bent double, clutching my sides.

"Shit. Shit! I need to think." I said, breathing deeply.

"Well do not take too long. The horde marches ever onward." Morrigan warned, in a sing-song voice.

Okay, so as far as I could see I had two options…no, I had three options. I could run – although that seemed less and less appealing by the second. I could go to Ostagar, find the Grey Wardens, attempt to impress them with fighting skills that I still wasn't sure I possessed and join their order.

Option three: I could go to Ostagar, find Duncan and try to warn him of Loghain's betrayal before it happened. At the very least, I might be able to save some lives.

"Okay. I'll do it." I sighed, drawing myself up. "I'll go to Ostagar."

**AN:** Thanks for reading. Don't worry, Alistair-lovers! He'll be making an appearance shortly. And Morrigan the mute will find her voice in the next chapters, I just feel like when Flemeth's there, she tends to kind of fade into the background a little, so I was trying to stay true to the game, as much as I love her.

Please review, and thank you to **nemesis1807** for your kind words and to **SleepiPanda** for the favourite!


	6. Guided

**AN: Sorry the update took so long, I was stuck in Cancun with unlimited food and alcohol for two whole weeks. It wasn't easy, but someone had to do it. **

"Morrigan will escort you to Ostagar." Flemeth declared once I was back inside the hut. "It is not a long walk, but it is a perilous one."

"_I_ will escort her?" Morrigan asked, clearly annoyed with the whole situation. I could hardly blame her: she was probably just having a quiet day, doing…whatever the Hell Morrigan did, and I showed up out of nowhere, slept in her bed and now she had been roped into being a Wilds tour guide. I smirked, picking up my handbag from the side of the bed I had slept in and slinging it over my shoulder.

"Don't argue, girl." Flemeth snapped, and the steel in Morrigan's eyes softened.

"Very well, I will take you." Morrigan sighed. "Your attire is not exactly appropriate should we encounter any Darkspawn on our journey. Do you even possess a weapon?" She asked, trailing her eyes over me appraisingly. I smoothed down the skirt of my black, bodycon dress, thoughtfully. It had been Emily's favourite dress of mine, and I wore it the funeral because I thought she would approve or something. She had borrowed it countless times – one of the perks of being an identical twin was that you automatically doubled your wardrobe. She had worn it more than I had. It still smelled of her.

"It was my sister's favourite…" I said, mostly to myself. "It'll have to do for now, anyway. Hopefully someone at Ostagar can hook me up with some armour, but this is all I have with me. And I don't have a weapon because there's no sword-compartment in the Mulberry shoulder bag. It's a major design flaw, obviously, and they'll be receiving a strongly-worded letter from me when I get back home. Guess you'll just have to pick up my slack." I said, locking eyes with her, challengingly. She might have been a powerful apostate, but I had gone to an all-girls school for six years: if she wanted to have a bitch-off, she was going to lose.

Flemeth strode to the back of the hut, tossing aside a red, velvet throw to reveal a large wooden chest. She bent over it and pulled out a long sword, which she held out to me. The sheath was adorned with intricate carvings which flowed seamlessly onto the wrought iron hilt. It was quite beautiful, but looked incredibly old.

"Take this with you, Lauren Duval. I have no need of it." She said simply, as I took the sword in my hands. It wasn't as heavy as I had anticipated it to be and I unsheathed it, slowly, balancing it in my hand. I swung it through the air a few times, to test the balance of it and nodded, sheathing it and swinging it over my shoulder, tightening the leather strap to hold it in place. I reached behind me and felt for the pommel, to check that the positioning of it allowed for quick access. Satisfied, I nodded in gratitude.

"Thank you, Flemeth. I still don't know why you're doing all of this for me." I admitted, frowning. She threw her head back and cackled.

"Before this day is over, you will be on your way to repaying me. Do not doubt that." And I didn't. If I knew anything about Flemeth, it was that she always got her way. Even when Morrigan had sent the Warden to kill her, she had still found a way to live on: she had a plan, I was sure, and I was just another chess piece on her board. I knew this, but there was little I could do about it. I was here now, and I had no choice but to go to Ostagar – just as she had wanted.

"Very well…come on, then." Morrigan sighed, impatiently, striding out of the hut into the clearing. With a final nod to Flemeth, I turned and followed her with a knot of apprehension forming in the pit of my stomach. I wasn't sure what unnerved me more: the threat of Darkspawn and Wilder creatures or the prospect of one-on-one conversation with Morrigan.

As soon as she saw me emerge from the hut, she wheeled around and started striding towards the tree-line, and I jogged to catch up with her, cursing that the decision to wear a dress and heels to Em's funeral had won out over my initial desire to slum it in jeans and converse.

I caught up with her just in time for her to surge ahead of me again, weaving through trees, following some unmarked path that only she knew. I trotted along behind her, tripping and stumbling over gnarled roots and loose rocks, certain that I wouldn't make it to Ostagar without breaking an ankle. Wet grass and marsh slapped at my bare legs as I walked, making my skin crawl and itch and I forced myself to resist the urge to stop and wipe the awful moisture off, aware that Morrigan probably wouldn't stop to wait for me.

A horrible thought crept into my mind as I looked around at the labyrinth of trees surrounding me. We had been walking for almost ten minutes in silence, ducking and weaving and frequently changing direction. If Morrigan disappeared on me, I would be completely, hopelessly lost. I wondered how long a person could wander in this place before finding a clear path to civilisation. The forest was so thick and dense that it blocked out all sunlight, though it couldn't have been later than two in the afternoon. If Morrigan decided that she didn't want to help me after all, I could spend the rest of my life lost in this place.

This thought spurred me on, and a wave of adrenaline carried me faster along the invisible path so that I was right on her heel.

"Hey, Morrigan? Do you think you could slow down a little?" I asked, panting slightly. She stopped walking so suddenly that I almost slammed into her back, and the movement threw me off-balance. She wheeled around to face me, her eyes glinting fiercely in the darkness, and I wobbled on one leg, trying to regain my footing.

"You wish to slow down? Does this pace tire you?" She asked, in a dangerously sweet voice.

"No, it doesn't_ tire_ me, but I have no idea where we're going. And these shoes weren't exactly designed for hiking through forests." I pointed out, trying not to sound as pissed-off as I felt.

"I'm not exactly sure _what_ those shoes were designed to do." She replied, studying my black high-heels with obvious distaste. I momentarily forgot my precarious situation and narrowed my eyes. You can insult me all you like, but leave the shoes out of it.

"These are Christian LouBoutins. They were designed to be fabulous. If I had thought that I would be spending my day in the Wilds of Ferelden, I would probably have worn something a little more practical. Despite your obvious belief that I'm an imbecile, I do actually have a brain in my head. This…" I gestured at our surroundings, "Was not in my schedule."

Morrigan smirked, but the gleam in her eyes was one of amusement rather than disdain, and she cocked her head to the side.

"You are strange." She observed, though it didn't sound like an insult. "Come then. I shall try to move at a more agreeable pace for you."

We started walking again, only this time we walked side-by-side, and it was more of a casual stroll than a race. After a few minutes, the trees seemed to thin out a little, and a few brave rays of sunlight pierced the canopy, basking the forest floor in a dusky light.

"Where are you from, Lauren Duval?" She asked, suddenly, surveying me with a spark of what seemed like genuine interest.

I chewed my lip. What could I say? I was from somewhere over the rainbow? Through the looking-glass? I had fallen down the rabbit-hole, taken the red pill, hopped on the Hogwart's express and stepped through a wardrobe into the Tardis? My own theories didn't make a whole lot more sense than any of that.

"I'm from a place called Scotland." I decided that the easy answer was the only one I had right now.

"That is the name of your world?" She asked, casually, as if the idea that there were different worlds out there was nothing new to her.

"My country. I'm not sure where my world is, in relation to here. I _thought_ I knew but now…" I trailed off, unsure of how to finish.

_Oh, you just turn left at Big Ben, second star to the right and straight on 'till morning, you can't miss it._

"How did you come to be here? I heard what my mother said. A tear in the veil…that is all fine and well, but a tear that large does not simply happen by accident. Powerful magics were involved…and yet _you_ are no mage."

"Nope. I'm still waiting for my letter from Hogwarts." I agreed, and she frowned in confusion but let the comment pass. "I don't really know. I think it might have something to do with my sister." I admitted, voicing the theory that had been nagging at the back of my mind all day.

"Your sister? _She_ is a mage?" She asked. I shook my head.

"No, Emily was…just a normal girl." I said, quietly, uncomfortable with describing my sister as normal…such an ugly word. The truth was she was great. She was _special_…but in supernatural terms, she was a muggle through-and-through.

"Was?" She asked, curiously, her eyes flicking over my face.

"Ah…you picked up on that." I muttered, kicking a stone out of my path. "Yeah, she…she passed away recently…a week ago, in fact." I sighed, wondering whether or not I could tell Morrigan the rest. I decided that I had nothing to lose. "I think she was killed. There was something…some force that controlled her, lead her to her death. I haven't…nobody in my world knows that. They think she took her own life. I knew, because I saw it happen in a…in a dream." I finished, lamely.

"And you did not tell anyone?" She asked, frowning.

"Nah…things like that, they don't really happen in my world. We don't have magic, or the Fade, or Darkspawn…any of it. Even if I had told anybody, they would never have believed me." I cleared my throat, blinking back tears. "I haven't told anybody, until now."

She was silent for a while, obviously deep in thought.

"So…you say you have no magic…no _Fade_…" She shook her head as if she found the idea absurd, and continued, "…and yet you witnessed your sister's death in a vision? How? If there is no Fade in your world, how is that possible?"

"It's not." I admitted, shaking my head. "But it happened. I don't know…we don't have a Fade, but there are some people in my world who do believe in supernatural phenomena…visions, ghosts, near-death-experiences. Until a week ago I would have face-palmed if someone had tried to convince me that any of that stuff was actually _real_. But a lot of people believe that there's some deep, spiritual, psychic connection that twins share. Maybe it has something to do with that, although I have to admit that nothing like that had ever happened between Emily and I before."

"Twins." Morrigan repeated under her breath, her brow furrowing in thought.

"Yeah. We're identical twins. So maybe it's a good thing I landed in Ferelden, I know it was killing my parents to have to look at me every day. I'm a living reminder of what they've lost." I muttered, bitterly. I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I hadn't realised that Morrigan had stopped walking. I looked round at her, questioningly. It was difficult to tell in the half-light of the forest, but I thought that her face looked, if possible, even paler than usual.

She was studying me with a look that might have been horror, and I was suddenly reminded of Gavin Grieve's face the day before when he'd seen me standing by that tree: like he'd seen something utterly impossible…something that had terrified him out of his wits.

"What?" I asked, frowning with unease. She opened her mouth to answer, but the sound of yelling and the unmistakable clash of steel on steel cut her reply short and we whipped around in unison, trying to locate the sound of the commotion. I reached behind me, unsheathing my sword and gripping it tightly in both hands, sinking into a defensive stance that felt more natural than breathing. I glanced at her warily, silently asking what we should do.

"There is trouble ahead." She muttered, more to herself than to me. "Keep your wits about you."

**AN: Thanks for reading. Next stop: Ostagar! And Alistair! I wrote this under the influence of severe jet-lag, so my apologies for any major oversights. This is why beta-readers were created, but I've yet to employ one. **

**Thank you to everyone who's reviewed, favourited and followed!**

**Please review? Kaythanksbye.**


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